Ode to ‘their distinguished honourables’

If honour must be given to whom it rightly belongs, all lawmakers in the 8th National Assembly and the leadership in both the red and green chambers deserve our unalloyed obeisance for their uncommon display of loyalty to the nation and patriotic zeal towards the realisation of our collective dreams. But for the maturity and absolute dedication of these lawmakers to the national call to duty despite the extreme provocation by the executive, the change mantra of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government would not have been translated into the visible achievements that most Nigerians talk about today. Though the insistence of these distinguished and honourable lawmakers on the need to operate within the principle of separation of powers was without some collateral damage, it is to their credit that they had shunned all entreaties and have refused to be silenced by the antics of a hard-faced executive. It is for that reason that Knucklehead is dedicating this page to these iconic men of timbre and calibre who have re-engineered the narrative of an otherwise docile legislative body to a focused and result-driven one.

I know some people still hold certain ‘sins’ against these exceptional patriots in our democratic experiment. While it is my belief that they reserve the right to do that, I hasten to forecast that they would be wearing the toga of absolute contrition and tender unreserved apologies to the lawmakers by the time I finish highlighting some of the finest moments and the arduous lawmaking encumbrances that these rare Nigerians have had to meander through – all in the course of formulating laws for the good governance of the country. Okay, I confess to being one of their fiercest critics in the past for what has turned out to be a perceived misjudgment of their action and inaction especially when they appeared to be spending more time on recess than on actual legislative duties. Before I saw the sense in their operational style, I used to lambast the senators and house members for betraying public trust with their abysmally slow response to issues that bother on the wellbeing of the people while huffing and puffing over their allowances and general wellbeing. Now, I have seen the light. Without this set of Nigerians, the candle of our democratic journeys would have burnt out. A few examples would suffice.

It is ennobling to see that the serious business of lawmaking has shifted from the mundane quarrel, random tantrums and rough fisticuffs over allegations of budget padding, leadership highhandedness or internal crisis on the sharing of one thing or the other. On resumption this year, the legislature has been strictly focused on matters of national importance. In the House of Representatives for example, the honourable members were mindful of the implication of the order of elections in the 2019 poll to the growth of our economy in this financial year that they had to swiftly effect a change such that the Presidential poll would now be held last. That was no mean feat at all! In fact, for me, it came at a great cost and personal sacrifice by the lawmakers contrary to the belief in some quarters that the move was selfish as the lawmakers were conscious of the implication of the fortunes or misfortunes of a presidential candidate on their electoral mandate. Some had even alluded to the fact that most serving lawmakers had trotted on the crest of Buhari’s monstrous popularity to make it to the hallowed chambers and now that his fame has dwindled due to a harvest of failures, it would be better to leave him to his fate on the last day of the elections. Well, that is just within the realm of mere conjectures. As far as I know, these noble lawmakers have spent more time in making laws for the general wellbeing of the common Nigerians despite the meager allocations at its disposal in the last three years or so. That is why the Senate has quickly bought into the idea of a re-tuned order of elections in line with the powers conferred on them. The little discomfort that the change would cause the electoral body notwithstanding, we must applaud them for making hay while the sun shines before any member of the executive would use his own blues to spoil their reggae dance in the market place!

If they so wish, the lawmakers could have opted to laze around, cruising back and forth from the luxurious cars that was procured from tax-payers’ sweat; luxuriate in their specially-designated elevators and still end up sharing the usual millions monthly without anybody raising an eyebrow. They could claim to have been elected to enjoy in Abuja, on behalf of everybody but, being conscientious citizens bent on turning things around for the good of all, they chose to stoop low and occasionally hitch a ride on the elevators meant for the few lucky ‘commoners’ working with them. However, instead of appreciating and venerating them for this humane gesture as was the practice in developed countries in Europe and the Americas, one of those yamhead ‘commoners’ violently abused the privilege last week by attempting to slap an aide to a whole distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic.

Quite honestly, I was fuming with uncontrollable rage when the story filtered through my favourite websites. You mean a Nigerian, known for his docility and dumb genuflection to a constituted authority, could have the temerity to raise his filthy hands against the law itself?

I wouldn’t have believed that story until the astonishingly beautiful Senate Minority Whip. Senator Biodun Olujimi (PDP, Ekiti South) relayed what transpired during that moment of madness and unprovoked insult against the highly-revered office of a lawmaker. Thankfully, Olujimi said it was merely an ‘altercation’ between her aide and some unruly elevator user who wondered why the aide was protecting a senator that was hitching a ride on the ‘staff’ elevator. Just imagine how some commoners toy with their lives. What would have happened if the senator’s aide or her security details had decided to employ the use of his gun during the altercation? Would the heavens have fallen if the senator had ordered her aide to slap the disrespectful bush man? Or would the commoner be left off the hook if he had dared to decorate the senator’s pretty cheeks with hot slaps just because she decided to share the elevator with them instead of taking a distinguished ride on the one set aside for people in her class? Respect please!

Come to think of it, it is that lack of respect for constituted authority that almost put the Comptroller General of Customs, Col. Hammed Ali (Rtd.) into trouble with the Senator Dino Melaye-led Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Economic Waste in the Nigeria Customs Service. For a set of people that is constitutionally empowered to summon the President and Commander-In-Chief of the country at the whim, Ali ought to have known that he was fishing in troubled waters with his refusal to personally stand at the gate house, to usher in members of the committee when they paid a fact-finding visit to the Wuse, Zone 3 Headquarters of the Nigeria Customs Service last Monday. Contrary to Ali’s warped beliefs, senators are not ordinary people. They are to be feared, worshipped and treated with utmost genuflection in order get the best out of them. And that was the point Dino was making in expressing his displeasure with the way Ali welcomed the committee to his office. Speaking with the authority vested in him by the Senate President as leader of the committee on national duties, Dino said: “Let me make this small remark on what we have just observed here in form of breach of protocols. Mr. CG, rather than meeting us here at the conference room by way of courtesy, you are supposed to have met us at the ground floor on arrival into the premises.”

And what did Ali do? Rather than treat Dino’s outburst with the seriousness it requires and then proceed to kowtow before the powerful persons before him, Ali impudently stirred the hornet’s nest by his needless obduracy. Ordinarily, he could have quelled the fire of dissonance by fanning the egos of the Dino group with some tasteful jokes about his indiscretion and seek forgiveness. Instead, he fired a riposte on protocols and etiquette, disdainfully looking at their most distinguished as a village school headmaster would look at his pupils! Listen to him: “I don’t need to come downstairs to receive you just as nobody in the Senate or House of Representatives has never come out to receive us anytime we visit the National Assembly. So, there is no breach of protocol for not coming down to welcome you since the appropriate officers have been assigned to do so. Our protocol is our protocol and should be allowed to be. In fact, by way of etiquette, it is the committee that is supposed to come to my office first on arrival and not just come straight to the conference room.” Chai! Ali!!!

Well, Knucklehead may not be versed in matters of protocols and etiquette in official quarters. He is not even interested in knowing who was right or wrong between the two muscle-flexing noisemakers. What I know is that it is extremely dangerous for an appointee of the President to brew a potentially festering hostility against a rampaging National Assembly that has publicly declared technical bankruptcy some few months to an electioneering campaign. If this heady Ali does not fear those who can throw out the water in the pot, shouldn’t he be a bit circumspect in dealing with those who are ready to throw out the water in addition to breaking the pot? What’s my own? I’ve grabbed my seat on the front row, eagerly waiting for another round irritatingly intriguing drama that has no effect on the soaring price of fish!